


A Turning of the Tide

by Peapods



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:58:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan knows his time is not ripe. He's willing to wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Turning of the Tide

"She's dangerous," Ethan tells him as they share a drink.

"I know, _she_ knows," Rupert says, taking a hefty sip of his drink. "I should have realized how powerful she would become."

"Yes, you probably should have," he says, unsympathetically. He and Ripper have never been ones to sugarcoat things.

"I'm still boggled by the fact that they let you out," Rupert slurs. It's a rare night away from the coven where the red witch rests and heals and tries to reconcile her murderous tendencies with her docile nature.

"Hard to keep someone prisoner when the whole operation goes to bollocks," Ethan says, taking a long pull of his own drink.

Rupert snorts to himself and finally meets Ethan's eyes.

"She's upset things, you realize," Ethan says, because the gazing can only lead to places he and Rupert have been there and done that before and that sort of thing only leads to Rupert hating him even more in the morning.

"Balance," Rupert says.

"Yes. The Slayer was to remain dead and now things have been... torn, unhinged. Seers and priestesses and every other manner of magical person are pissing themselves and looking at Sunnydale with a foul eye. Wondering what's next."

Rupert doesn't respond. Ethan recalls, well, recalls in the sense that he hacked Watcher records, that he was not the first choice for the lovely Buffy's Watcher. He knows how close this man has become to those young people. The ones who stand between evil and the rest of the world.

The burden of responsibility is one Ethan has struggled against but is something Rupert has embraced. It is too much for him, Ethan thinks sometimes. But he envies that the "Scoobies," as they call themselves, have such blase power over his friend. Father, mentor, friend, lover, whatever he might be to those children, Rupert has taken each role. Not always with aplomb. He knows Rupert too well to think that he has taken to each role like a fish to water. The rebellion is still in him, but he cares too much about them to truly resist their categorizations.

"They will meet with whatever challenge they come across," Rupert says. Ethan smirks to himself. He once fancied Rupert a reincarnation of or even as THE Merlin. Power and devotion and the capacity for mistakes.

It makes him irresistible to mere mortals such as Ethan.

"I've no doubt of it," he says, draining his drink and rising, a few notes scattered on the table. "And you will help them, Rupert. You must."

Rupert's head raises and they share the longest stare in twenty years.

"I have faith. And so do they. Do right by the witch. Do right by the Slayer. You aren't capable of anything less."

He stumbles into typical wet, cold English weather and heaves a sigh. Rupert will figures things out, then shrugs. And if he doesn't, he will meet the threat anyway. As he always has.

Ethan, in the meantime, can wait.


End file.
